


lost & found

by luoup (ravenic)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Jossed, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-03-15
Packaged: 2018-09-18 21:09:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9402965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenic/pseuds/luoup
Summary: The wormhole has been rent apart by Haggar’s magic, and the Paladins are lost.





	1. lost

**Author's Note:**

> in short: i had an idea and it was great, and then i forgot how time works.
> 
> so here's a super-short, fragmented, disjointed something that was supposed to be a lot more detailed and coordinated. also i misunderstood the release date for s2 so the original plan of "have this written/edited/posted/complete before season 2 is out" went down the drain veryfast. i gave up on the editing so apologies for any weirdness.

_castleship_

No.

“No,” she whispers, staring into the blank darkness of empty space, unbroken by any brightly colored felines. “No, no, no, nonononono.

“Where are they?!” and her voice cracks; she presses her shaking body hard against the wall. “Coran, where are –”

“I don’t know,” her all-but-blood uncle mutters, tapping hard and fast at the controls, “I don’t see – they aren’t – there are no readings –”

Allura can’t breathe. The Paladins are gone. Haggar – she had done – _something_ – and the wormhole had torn like gauze and her Paladins are _gone._

Gone.

Her body gives out, and she sits down hard on the floor. The castleship is shaking, alarms blaring through the halls, but she notices none of it. All she can do is stare out the window, stare into the darkness.

No Lions. The space around the castle is empty, and the Paladins are gone.

* * *

* * *

_red_

It’s like Keith is home again. The desert (sand just a little too golden, but he can blame that on light), the huge open sky (more on the purple side than blue, but it just makes it look like dusk all the time), and – best of all – his brother, back at his side. Everything is as it should be.

Except that there is a massive Red Lion lying in a crash-landing furrow in the sand, barely able to activate at all, and an even bigger Black Lion crouched nearby, not half as wounded as Red but her comms still won’t work and where else would they go anyway?

And Shiro does not wake up for three days.

He does, eventually, and the knot in Keith’s stomach loosens somewhat. More scars, more trauma, more fear, but he is alive and awake and the fever has broken and Keith can fix this.

He hates seeing his brother afraid. Not because fear is weakness – it’s a survival response, and Shiro has survived a _lot_ – but because it’s not something Keith can fight. Keith would fight the universe for Shiro – _is_ fighting the universe for Shiro – but he can’t stop his brother’s nightmares from coming every time the sun sets, can’t stop the flashbacks and panic attacks, stronger and more frequent now because of recent events, and he hates it.

So no. It’s not quite like being home again. The sand is too gold and the sky is not blue enough and Shiro is shards of who he used to be and the Lions are half-wrecked – and _this is not Earth_ – but until Allura can track them down with the castleship, Keith is going to pretend.

(He does not think about his fight with Zarkon. He does not think about Shiro’s fight with Haggar. He does not think about his brother’s new scar, tracing a raised red line along his side, and he does not think about how Red may not fully recover from the damage he put her through charging headlong into a fight he couldn’t win on his own.)

For now, Keith is home. Until the castleship arrives to take him back to space, he is home in the desert with his brother. That’s all.

* * *

_black_

When he first returns to consciousness, Shiro wonders if it was all a dream.

He’s not in space. The air here is not recycled. It’s dry, but fresh. He’s in some kind of shelter, but the world is outside.

_Did he ever even leave for Kerberos? Is he still with the Garrison? Where is his brother?_

Strange thoughts, but warm. Did Keith remember to eat breakfast? Has he been studying for his exams? What’s for dinner?

_Are the Galra still out there?_

Sharp thoughts. He’s not warm anymore, he’s hot. Burning. His arm hurts, his nose hurts. Where is Matt? Where is Commander Holt? Is Shiro on Kerberos? Earth? Where is Keith? His side is searing. What is he so afraid of? _Why does his arm hurt so much?_

He wakes up. The fever from Haggar’s wound _(most recent wound)_ breaks at last, and he opens his eyes to Keith leaning over him, worry making his brother’s face look too old for his (far too young) years.

Shiro wonders what he himself looks like now.

They’re not on Earth. Shiro remembers now. Kerberos, the Galra, the arena, his _arm_ –

Voltron. He remember Voltron, remembers his Black Lion. Remembers the fight. Haggar. The wormhole. The universe breaking apart around him. Losing his team, again.

He’s supposed to be the leader, but Shiro doesn’t feel strong anymore. It was a mask to begin with, and the last battle cracked it hard. He needs to be strong, for Voltron and his team and the Princess and the universe, but for now he’s too scattered to cover the fractures, and there is only Keith.

It’s okay to be broken with Keith. He’ll just use the time until the castleship comes to put himself back together and seal up the cracks. He’ll be fine.

He has to be.

*

The castleship doesn’t come.

* * *

_blue_

When Lance wakes up, all he can see is blue.

For a moment, he thinks he fell asleep on the beach and dreamed the whole damn thing. Lions, spaceships, aliens – none of it was real. Then he sits up.

The Lions were real. Are real – he’s sitting in Blue’s cockpit. Her lights are flickery and the airways are nothing but static, but she’s in one piece. Mostly. He didn’t dream it all. Voltron is real, and he is the Blue Paladin, and home is a million million light-years away.

But he was right about one thing – he is on a beach. Not an Earth beach, but a beach nonetheless. At this point, he’s willing to take it.

He explores a little – hey, he’s a curious guy. White sand (way too white to be from an Earth beach), and the water is unbelievably blue, and… that’s it. He thinks he’s on an island. It’s not very big and there’s not much on it, and the few trees are scraggly with green bark and branches like they were planted upside-down with their roots in the air instead.

Lance is on a beach, and he is alone.

Suddenly the sea doesn’t look so welcoming anymore.

* * *

_yellow_

Hunk opens his eyes to burning gold.

It takes him a minute to realize that he’s not dead, and another to shut his eyes, rubbing at them with one hand. _Don’t stare into the sun,_ he can almost hear his mother’s voice, scolding him. But his mother isn’t here to chide him for lying here like a rock and staring at a sun that does not belong to Earth, and Hunk has things to do.

He pushes down the panic when the comms open to nothing but fuzz. He pushes it down harder when he looks out of the cockpit and cameras and sees nothing but a blue, blue ocean all around him. He shoves it down with all his strength when he realizes that he is alone, lost at sea.

He panics.

He comes back to his mind later, and realizes that no. He’s not quite alone. Yellow must have hit the water hard, but she grumble-purrs in the back of his mind, chuffing at him until he can breathe again.

He’s not alone. This is a strange planet, but he loves the ocean, and he’s not going to let this… slight detour take that from him. Yellow is battered but not inactive, and Hunk has work to do.

 _Okay, Hunk,_ he thinks to himself, reaching for the comm system and already thinking of frequencies to try. _You’re the Yellow Paladin of Voltron. So go find Voltron._

* * *

_green_

Pidge never knew that green could be so cruel.

The jungle is far hotter than any Earth rainforest, and a thousand times thicker. Vines bigger than Pidge’s waist wrap around gray-barked trees that could tower over the castleship. There are leaves the size of bedspreads, roots that tower over Green.

Pidge has always been small, but they feel tiny now. Tiny and fearful, like a mouse in a forest filled with prowling cats.

They shake their head hard, and have to lean on Green’s scraped-up paw to keep from falling. They’ve had better landings, and being stranded in the jungle is not helping. But still. This is no time for panicking and hiding like a rodent. Pidge is a Paladin. They are a lion. They have a blade filled with lighting and a mind more powerful than any other on Earth. They can do this.

Green took the wormhole-break hard, and hit the jungle even harder. The trees and vines did their damage, and the mechanical feline has been left barely able to move, even if it wasn’t wrapped and tangled in shattered foliage.

Worse than the external damage is the comms. Pidge remembers the bright burst of light in the control panels right as the wormhole had split, shattering glass and sending sparks flying into the Paladin’s face. Green’s comms are fried.

But Pidge isn’t the Green Paladin for nothing. If they’re stuck here, they’re not going to sit like a duck. Green isn’t going anywhere, so Pidge has an entire robotful of parts to use to repair the comms with and signal the castleship or the other Paladins. Green will forgive them. (It has to.)

Let the jungle try its best. Pidge’s blade is sharp and their mind is sharper, and they’re going to get out of here no matter what.

* * *

* * *

_castle_

In the first few days after the wormhole exploded, Allura nearly drives herself out of her mind. She and Coran try everything, but they can’t track down any of the Lions. None of the Paladins are responding to any signal, on any frequency.

After ten thousand years Voltron had returned, and within the space of a few ticks Allura has managed to lose all of it.

Coran tries to keep her from blaming herself, but the guilt is heavy and thick and she can’t escape it. So she grits her teeth. She lost the Paladins, so she will find them again. She has to.

She has to.

.

.

.

_Boys, sound the bells_

_The sun rose from the west today_

_I doubt we'll see it set_

_Oh and boys, bear it well_

_Put all your paper maps away_

_Mercator here can't help_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> probably gonna mess with the formatting like heck, brace yourselves. again, ran out of editing/planning time, so i'm just throwing this out there and i'll deal with everything later.
> 
> end lyrics (and general mood of this chapter) from dessa’s [sound the bells](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIGioQ7tfXg)


	2. found

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apologies for the wait, school hit me like a truck. i'm back, and the paladins are found!
> 
> layin' on the allura self-blame, but honestly if it had taken a long time for her to find the paladins i absolutely think that she would have blamed herself. not rightfully so, but that's what guilt does to you.

_red & black – found_

It took too long, far too long, for Allura to find even one of the Lions’ beacons.

Red’s signal was weak, but it was enough. After over two weeks of emptiness and desperation, anything was enough. Allura had to sit down to stop herself from shaking, watching helplessly as Coran enter the coordinates faster than he ever had in his life.

She had failed, failed terribly, but she would find them if it was the last thing she ever did. The Red Lion was still sending out the signal, so Keith had to be okay. He had to. Of the other Lions, there was still nothing more than static, no matter what wavelength she tried or how far she pushed the range. Nothing, two weeks after the wormhole had been torn apart like a bridge shattering in an earthquake. But they were all going to be all right. Allura didn’t know what she would do if they weren’t, so she refused to think about it. _Just find them. You have to find them._

And now she had found one, at least. One signal, out of five. But it was more than nothing.

Wait. Two. There were two lions on the planet below, Allura realized as the castle emerged from its wormhole and descended towards the beacon’s source. One red, terribly damaged, and one black, motionless in the sand.

_Shiro._

If Allura hadn’t already been seated, helping Coran navigate the descent, she would have collapsed. Shiro was all right. Shiro and Keith were alive, they were safe, and they were back with her. Thank the stars.

Red was absolutely wrecked, the damage from Keith’s fight with Zarkon painfully evident against her metal plating. It was clear that she could not fly, and she was going to need a trac-beam to get back to the Castleship.

Black could fly, but… Shiro could not. His injuries from Haggar seemed to be mostly healed, after so long (after so many days that he was lying on the sand in a desert planet instead of safe in a healing pod, all because Allura had failed to protect him, had failed to find him), but it was clear that the psychological damage had been the last crack in the dam. Allura knew soldiers. And she knew when someone was on the verge of splintering into nothingness. Shiro was safe now, but he was nowhere near alright. It had been a long time coming, but now Shiro was… different.

Keith, on the other hand, had sharpened where Shiro had caved. He was – almost feral, now. Fiercer than he had been. Allura did not think about how he might have ended up, even after only two weeks, without someone by his side, without Shiro. They held each other together, and Shiro had not shattered (yet), and Keith had not burst into flames (yet).

But that was behind them now. They had been rescued, they were safe, and now there were four people looking for the three remaining Paladins, instead of only two. They would all be fine.

Allura told herself all this over and over, but she had never been very good at lying.

* * *

_blue & yellow – found_

A week and a half later, they found Lance and Hunk. The Legs of Voltron had, by some fortune, ended up on a planet with a water cover of 93%. Allura knew from the paladins’ stories that both Lance and Hunk had grown up by the sea, and it showed. Considering that it had taken nearly a month for the Castleship to find them (and oh how every moment of it had hurt Allura’s very being), the two seemed to be doing quite well.

“But _man_ am I done with fish,” Lance said, helping Keith lift a piece from Blue that had been turned into a sunshade back onto the Lion.

“ _You’re_ done?” Hunk asked. “I’m the one who had to cook all those fish! How you still can’t cook is a mystery to me, after all the time we’ve been friends.” But he laughed when Lance stuck his tongue out at him and just kept on picking up scattered objects around the tiny island-spot that had become the Blue and Yellow Paladins’ home for the last month.

 _A month._ Checking over the damage to Yellow, Allura repressed her shudder. Yes, it was a beautiful planet, and it was well-known that both Lance and Hunk loved the ocean, but that did not excuse how terribly long it had taken for Allura to be able to find them, for the weak, blinking beacon of the Yellow Lion to flash up on the screen. She was supposed to be the _Princess_ , for Goddess’s sake, she was supposed to lead and guide the Paladins of Voltron, not misplace them like a handful of scattered socks!

She was yanked out of her thoughts when Hunk came up beside her, reaching out to run his fingers across the battered golden plating on Yellow’s leg. “I just wish we’d had some more tools,” he sighed. “I could totally have fixed Yellow up within a week if I had had the right supplies.”

More twisting in Allura’s belly. Surely that was her fault, too. Her Paladins had been unprepared, and she was lucky that so far everyone had been mostly okay.  
“Hey, speaking of parts,” Hunk perked up, leaning back to look at both Allura and Keith behind her, still wrestling with Blue’s plating, “where’s Pidge? How did they fix Green, or were they super lucky and avoided a crash landing completely? Green’s pretty small, they probably were able to control the Lion and not hit too hard. Did –” he stopped. The change in mood had been palpable – both Allura and Keith had frozen, Keith’s face shuttering into the flat expression he used when he didn’t want to show that he was upset, and Allura certainly showing her guilt in every inch of her face and body.

Lance broke the sudden heavy silence. “You haven’t found Pidge yet.” It wasn’t a question.

All the joy and happiness at being found drained out of Hunk in an instant. “What? But – you –”

“We’ll find them,” Keith snapped, shoving one last hard push at the plating and finally snapping it back into alignment. “We found you two, after all, and they found me and Shiro when we didn’t even think our signals were working. Pidge will be fine.”

Keith wasn’t any better at lying than Allura was.

Trying to salvage something from this, trying to stop Lance’s building anger and Hunk’s sudden despair, Allura spoke at last. “We are reunited now. Surely, Hunk, with your help Coran will find the Green Lion’s beacon even faster. The rest of us are sadly lacking in that area of expertise; I am certain that with the two of you together Pidge will be found in no ti –”

 _“You don’t know that!”_ Hunk exploded suddenly, startling them all. At their looks, the Yellow Paladin tried to control himself, squeezing his hands in tight fists. “I had Lance. Keith had Shiro. Allura had Coran. But Pidge is alone. They’re lost and alone somewhere in the universe and we don’t know how to find them. It’s been a month. How do we know they’re safe? How do we know that they’re even still alive? How –”

In what seemed to be a single fluid moment, Lance crossed the space and wrapped himself around Hunk like a starfish. “Hunk, it’s okay. They’re fine, they’ll be fine. This is Pidge we’re talking about, remember? There is literally nothing in the universe they can’t do.”

“I imagine that they’ll have beaten whatever alien civilization they crashed on into submission by now,” Keith drawled, tapping at the edges of the plating that weren’t quite seamless. “Probably building some kind of humungous satellite dish to broadcast the all-caps message _‘WHERE THE HECK ARE YOU IDIOTS I’M GETTING BORED’_ into the void. They’re never gonna let us live it down that we’re all such backwards technological failures that we made them wait until last. I’m willing to bet a week’s worth of cleanup duty on it.”

Hunk’s grin was wobbly, his eyes still wet and his hands still tight, but somehow _Keith_ had managed to say the right thing. _“‘Is this because I’m the smallest?’”_ he said in a poor imitation of Pidge’s cranky-voice. _“‘Just because Coran calls me ‘Number Five’ doesn’t mean I have to be number five in the Lion Pick-up Line!’”_

Lance cracked up at the two of them. Even Allura, with her guilt and self-blame weighing heavy on her shoulders, had to smile at the image of Pidge’s irritable message shouting itself into space. It was almost believable.

As they all prepared to fly back to the Castleship, Allura touched Hunk’s wrist gently in passing. “I can’t tell you anything else, but I do know that Pidge is alive,” she murmured. “Even missing, I would feel the loss of a Paladin. They are alive, and we will find them.”

But she couldn’t meet his eyes. Pidge was alive, but where? She still wasn’t good enough – she couldn’t sense the last Lion, nor the Paladin inside it. She couldn’t find them.

Maybe Lance and Hunk would be able to do what she had failed to do for a month. Four Paladins found; the fifth had to come home soon.

* * *

_green_

It was nearly two months after the collapse of the wormhole that they found Pidge.

Correction: Hunk found Pidge. Coran was asleep and none of the rest of them knew the first thing about signals and reception and tracking, and it was Hunk who woke them all up with his shouting. The Green Lion’s beacon. Pidge.

Shiro insisted on being on board the descent vessel. Allura tried to protest – he was still injured, still unstable from the events that had transpired – but only weakly. She knew how much Pidge meant to him. After so long not knowing whether they were alive or dead… she had to let him go. He wouldn’t be alone, she and Hunk were coming with him. Lance and Keith wanted to come along as well, but she argued that they couldn’t all go down there, and eventually they gave up and stayed on the ship, sulking.

The planet was entirely covered in a vibrant shade of green brightly visible even from space. The color only got stronger the closer they got, and it was difficult to land the ship, since there seemed to be not a single clearing or open space anywhere near the Green Lion’s signal.

In fact, they couldn’t even see the Green Lion at all, not even when they got close. The beacon wasn’t terribly precise – it was meant to transmit long distances, not hone in on an exact location. Even transmitting the right planet was good enough for it.

But it meant that they still didn’t know where Pidge was. Allura could feel the anxiety radiating off both Hunk and Shiro, and even though she didn’t want to, she had to say it.

“Let’s split up.”

*

Shiro could physically feel the time passing, winding him tighter with every moment. It had been bad enough on the castleship, searching the tremendous vastness of space for a single Lion ship and one tiny human, but to have found the planet and not the Paladin? It was tormenting. And with every step, Shiro could feel Matt watching him, feel Commander Holt, feel their disappointment. Not only had he managed to lose both of them within a single year, but once the next Holt found him, he lost that one even faster. Some leader he was.

And then, in the space of a single step, Shiro found it.

The Green Lion was almost invisible, buried in vines and coated in mud and moss and tiny plant life, beneath which the green and white paint already blended in to its mottled surroundings. No wonder they couldn’t find a clearing – there was none. Any space the ship might have created in its crashing had already been grown over in the last two months by the truly impressive vegetation of this planet.

“Shiro?”

Anyone else, and Shiro’s arm would already be glowing, his body going into combat mode automatically. But he knew this voice. Had known it even before Voltron, even before Kerberos.

Pidge.

Like their Lion, they were covered in mud and green. Their hair was almost the same shade as the ship, a little longer now and tangled, glasses smudged and smeary. Their face showed none of the relief Shiro felt flooding through him.

“Are you real.”

It was hardly said as a question. Pidge’s body was rigid, tensed like they were preparing for a fight, watching Shiro like a feral cat. The words were baffling, and Shiro tripped over his words as he attempted to understand.

“I – what? Of course I’m real, Pidge, I –”

“Prove it.”

Shiro sputtered. Prove _what?_ How? He – Shiro took a deep breath. Pidge was here, Pidge was safe. But they had been out here, completely alone, for almost two months. That could easily be hard to believe – hell, Shiro had had a hard time believing his own escape from the Galra. He could at least prove to Pidge that this wasn’t all a dream.

He kept his hands low and open, the right one carefully not glowing or tensed. No danger in his body language. “Pidge, it’s me. Really. We’re here. I’m so sorry it took us so long to find you.

“I’m real. My name is Shirogane Takashi, and I’ve known you for almost three years. Your brother –” _no, don’t get lost in your head. You’ve found one Holt, you’ll find the others too_ – “your brother told me that your favorite type of star is a blue giant. You don’t actually like birds that much, so I’m still trying to figure out the name. You like clementines but not oranges. You’ll eat frozen peas right out of the bag –”

Shiro had only moments to prepare himself before he was tackled with an armful of Pidge. “You’re real, you’re real, you’re real,” they mumbled into his chest, and if Shiro hadn’t been covered in leaves and mud before, he sure was now. That was okay.

“I’m real,” he responded, tightening his arms around the last Paladin, “I’m real.”

Pidge pulled back a little bit. “Sorry,” they mumbled. “About that. I – I had to make sure. This planet, it’s… persistent. Sometimes I would – hallucinate, I guess. This is the third time I’ve seen you since Green and I crashed here, so…”

Shiro pulled them back in, hugging them all the tighter. “I promise, I’m real. We’re here. We found you.” _Not that my promises have ever done much good for Holts, but at least this one is good._

Even under all the grass stains, he could see and feel Pidge light up. “It’s not just you? Where are the others? Who else did you find? Are Allura and Coran okay? Is Keith’s Lion alright? Did Lance and Hunk –”

Shiro had to laugh. Five minutes in, and already Pidge was high-speed again. They were okay. “Yes, they’re all here. Everyone made it alright. Allura and Hunk are on-planet with me looking for you since Green’s beacon wasn’t accurate enough to pinpoint your location, and Lance, Keith, and Coran are on the castleship. We’re all okay.”

The Green Paladin let out an enormous sigh, and it was like all the energy had drained out of them at the same time. They sagged against Shiro, leaning against his right arm as if it couldn’t severely burn them in seconds if Shiro ever lost control. “They’re okay,” they murmured, not even protesting as Shiro scooped them up gently, “they’re okay.”

 _Now we are,_ Shiro thought, walking back towards where the pod had landed, radioing Allura, Hunk, and the castleship as Pidge went limp in his arms. _We’re all back together now. Everything is going to be all right._

.

.

.

_Go lift your sails up_

_For one last swell_

_Go lift yourselves up_

_To sound the bells_

_Sound the bells_

_Sound the bells_

_Sound the bells_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> end-lyrics are once again from sound the bells by dessa. 
> 
> sorrynotsorry for the overfocus on pidge. they are my favorite and the easiest for me to write, so that kinda happened.
> 
> it is bizarre and hilarious how much of this i got right, honestly. obviously not everything but i got a weird amount of details correct considering s2 did not exist when i wrote all of this. ... kind of creepy too.
> 
> (ch 3... might be a while in the making. this was all prewritten and it took me this long to post, i don't even have the aftermath chapter fully outlined. i will try to make it worth the wait.)


	3. together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The kids are not all right. 
> 
> The Paladins have been found, but it’s not over yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> incoherence strikes again sorry. i had a really hard time organizing/writing this chapter? it was weird. and i’m still not sure i’m satisfied. i feel like i lost the flow that i liked so much in the first chapter. but it was fighting me to the very end, so i just finished it and gave it up for whatever. it’s done now(*finally*), so here you go.

The Paladins had been found. It was done.

Of course, it was never that easy. They were still hiding, still healing. The separation had shaken them all deeply. They had been reunited, but things were… strange. The last few months had changed each of them, and they were still feeling the effects.

* * *

The mask Shiro had so carefully maintained before was shattered and gone, and he feared that it would never be quite complete again – it had been only a mask to start with, after all. A whisper in his head asked if he could really be strong again. Could he still lead Voltron like this? He feared the answer. He was afraid, now. He’d been pretty badly off to start with, and it was only worse now. He was different, now (again). Shiro was alive, but it still somehow felt like he had failed.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the dreams. Back on that planet, alone with Keith and lost deep in fever… there had been a moment, just a few heartbeats where he had been so sure that it had all been a dream. His face didn’t bear that terrible cleaving mark, his right arm was still his own, he hadn’t lost more than a year of memory. Aliens were still imaginary, and lions all looked the same and didn’t form anything at all except a pride.

But then he’d woken up, arm gone, face scarred, and the only familiar thing had been his brother. And then the castleship had returned, and they were back to being Paladins, searching for the others still lost.

Shiro was still lost. He was back on the castleship, back with Allura and Coran and Black, but he felt like part of him was still drifting out somewhere in space. He wasn’t sure where. He wasn’t sure he would be able to find it again. He didn’t know how to put himself back together, much less the others.

* * *

Keith was… strained. Back on that desert planet, so like home but so alien, there had been a short time where he had really thought Shiro was going to die. Part of him had been convinced that his brother, so recently found, was going to die on this planet, this place that looked like home but wasn’t.

And worst: Shiro had asked Keith to lead Voltron. Delirious, feverish, half-dead from the Druid’s attacks, Keith’s older brother had told him if he didn’t make it, he wanted Keith to lead. At the time, Keith hadn’t really processed it, because Keith being leader meant Shiro was no longer there, and Keith refused to accept that. He’d refused it on Earth, and it wasn’t going to change now that they were in space. But it still stayed in his mind. His brother was alive and healing, but he had changed – again – and Keith didn’t know how to help him. He didn’t know how to help Shiro, or the other Paladins, or himself.

He pushed away the twisting feeling that came whenever he thought about how recklessly he had charged into the battle, how he had endangered them all by attacking Zarkon mindless with rage. It had happened, there was nothing that could be done about it now. He had too many other things to think about now. (And maybe, next time they fought the Galra Emperor, he would think just a little bit more before he charged. He had to learn from his mistakes, before they got someone killed.)

Keith didn’t tell anyone about pretending to be home. He’d known it wasn’t true, of course – it hadn’t been like Shiro’s fevered hallucinations, talking as if Kerberos had never happened. It had just been how he’d coped. They had been stranded in a desert! Even if the colors were off and the wind didn’t smell the same, even if the days were shorter and the sunsets almost green, it had been enough like home for Keith to let his mind dream. Just him and Shiro, even though Shiro had never set foot in that tiny hermit shack until after his crash-landing back on Earth, even though the Red and Black Lions had been lying just yards away. It had been meaningless, really, but it had been the only comfort Keith had had. But still he felt a weird sort of guilt, and so he decided simply not to mention it to the other Paladins. He just wouldn’t tell them.

* * *

For a while, Lance had truly feared that the others were dead. As the days had passed and no castleship had appeared in the bright blue sky, part of him had begun to give up. Maybe the wormhole had torn the castle apart. Maybe the other Lions had been damaged even worse than Blue and Yellow. Maybe the Paladins had died where they had crashed, or had never hit a planet and drifted alone in the void until they starved to death. Lance and Hunk had gotten pretty lucky, after all – landing on a beach planet was about as good as it could get after a disaster like that. But he almost wished it hadn’t happened. For the rest of his life, the idea of beach and ocean would evoke not only the happy memories of his childhood by the sea on Earth, but also a month of wondering if they were the last ones left, of waiting and hoping and wishing and fearing.

Lance kept from sharing it with the others. They all had so much more to deal with – Shiro had almost died, Keith had barely kept him alive, Pidge had been alone (thank every god in the universe Lance had had Hunk with him or he would have lost his mind within a week) – they didn’t need him complaining about getting a month of beach vacation while they had been fighting for their lives. Even if that month had been spent wondering if he and Hunk would ever be found, if they were the only ones left.

* * *

Hunk threw himself into helping Coran and Pidge repair the castle. It was all he could do. He and Lance had waited on that ocean planet because he couldn’t fix Yellow. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t had the right tools, that Yellow had been too battered to be repaired by the small kit kept in the Lion. He was supposed to be better than this. Hunk was a Leg. He was supposed to help his team, to support them. But he and Lance had been alone together, and Shiro and Keith and Pidge had been left to hold themselves up on their own. Why couldn’t Hunk help anyone? Why couldn’t he even fix his own Lion? They had just sat and waited until Allura managed to pick up the weak, flickering signals of Blue and Yellow. Hunk needed to be better. He hadn’t been there when they needed him, so now he needed to help his team, if there was anything left he could do.

He knew it was senseless, berating himself in circles for being unable to do anything. But he and Lance had practically had a vacation (nevermind the fear and loneliness, they had gotten to sit around on the beach while Keith tried to keep Shiro alive and Pidge survived and fixed Green on their own) while their team had been struggling, and he couldn’t forgive himself for it. Some Leg he was. Some mechanic he was. He hadn’t fixed his Lion, hadn’t done anything at all until the castleship tracked him and Lance down. Hunk was supposed to be a Leg, he was supposed to support, to help. He’d been useless, and he wasn’t sure if he would ever really be able to forgive himself.

* * *

Pidge still wasn’t sure that it was all real. They weren’t on that jungle planet anymore, but the hallucinations had been powerful, and every time they fell asleep their dreams cried out that it was all fake and that they were still trapped there, gutting their own Lion in a desperate, last-ditch attempt at sending a signal.

They couldn’t sleep. They couldn’t do much of anything, really, except argue with themselves over whether the rescue had really happened or not. They had told Shiro that the planet caused – visions, or projections or something, Pidge had never really figured out how it had done that (who would have thought that a planet could be so tenacious?). Pidge had told Shiro about the two other times they had seen him coming to rescue them before the real (?) time. But they hadn’t told anyone about the three times Keith had appeared, or the fleeting moment when they had been so sure they could see Yellow and Blue flying through the trees. They hadn’t told anyone about the sixteen different occasions they had seen Galra soldiers, or gray-purple sentries, or violet-glowing droids, and thought that that was the end.

Pidge was glad that the others had had each other. Shiro would have died from his injuries without Keith, and no matter how much of a loner he claimed to be Keith would not have done well alone after his battle with Zarkon. Lance and Hunk probably saved each other just by being together. Pidge wouldn’t have wanted any of them to be alone. That didn’t mean that they didn’t wish there had been someone with them, or that they had been found a little earlier. Two months was a long time to be lost alone in a massive jungle forest with only a broken Lion and vivid hallucinations for company. And sometimes, they still weren’t quite sure if it was really over.

* * *

Allura was guilty. _So_ guilty. Some Princess she was. She had failed. She had lost her Paladins, and they were only back now because of their own strength. How could she do this to them? They were fighting Zarkon with everything they had, and she could barely lead them. She’d let Haggar’s magic get them, had let the wormhole rip apart and scatter them across the universe. Shiro had almost gone back to the Druids, almost died. Keith had nearly been left alone, and she knew that he would not have survived that, not this time. Lance and Hunk waited on that island and survived, waited until Hunk had done what repairs he could and Yellow’s signal could reach the castleship, because Allura could not find them on her own. Pidge could have died on that feral forest planet, would have died lost and alone and looking to the sky for a castle that only came after they had gutted their Lion and sent a thread of a beacon to them.

The Paladins had saved themselves, while Allura sat there, a useless Princess. Now they had all returned safely – more or less – and she spent every moment torn between not leaving their side, desperate to reassure herself that they were alive, and avoiding them completely, wracked with guilt.

She was drowning in self-hatred, but she couldn’t show anything. The Paladins had suffered so much, but they had been found at last (no thanks to her). Allura had to be competent now, for once. She had to do a good job, had to protect and lead them the way she had so failed to.

There was no other choice.

* * *

* * *

It goes on like that for days. Found and safe, but still suffering, avoiding talking about anything, not sleeping, not communicating. The Paladins have returned, but they are still lost.

Until they have to form Voltron.

It almost doesn’t work. They are afraid. They can’t click – Shiro feels the burn in his side, Keith can only think of empty sand, Lance sees a deserted beach, Hunk can’t fix what’s broken, Pidge is alone – but that planet is going to die if they don’t do something. So they do.

Just like that.

They hadn’t understood what it had been like, each different experience after the wormhole had been rent like old satin. It had been terrible, for all of them. Different, for each one, but no less bad for any one. Loneliness comes in different shapes and fear takes many forms.

They feel the heat and press of the thick jungle, the despair as things keep not being real. They feel the desperation to fix everything, the hopelessness at being unable to be the support they are meant to be. They feel the possibility that they might stay by this ocean forever, and never see the others again. They feel the guilt at pretending to be home, the worry over the one they had flown to the stars to find. They feel the delirium and fever dreams, the confusion of place, the cracks that can’t be covered up anymore.

But they are together now, minds melded and hearts bonded. They are not alone anymore.

They know that Shiro’s damaged – they knew it from the start – and it changes nothing. He is their leader, and they will follow him, but they are also there for him.  
They know that Keith had been asked to lead Voltron, know that in the desert he had dreamed of a different desert, far away, all he’d had of a home. Shiro is alive. Keith does not have to lead. If he did, they would support him. He’s not alone anymore. As for the desert dreams – they all think of home, sometimes. They do not fault him for it.

They know Lance’s fear of loss, know the agony of waiting. He has guilt too, but just because he was on a beach with his closest friend does not mean that he did not struggle just as much as any of them. Part of him had been so sure that he and Hunk were never going to be found, but they were. The others were alive and safe, and Lance was not alone.

They know Hunk’s feelings of insufficience. But he did everything he could have done, kept himself and Lance safe until the castle could be found. Sometimes things just can’t be fixed, especially with such limited resources as they had. He did all he could, and he and Lance are alive because of it. He is good enough. They know it, and now he does too.

They know Pidge’s fear, know how real the hallucinations felt, how powerful the jungle planet had been. They know that sometimes the Green Paladin isn’t sure if this is all still a dream, if they’re still there, lost and alone. They aren’t. They know it now. Not even the planet could replicate this feeling. They’ve been found.

Allura is not a part of Voltron, but it hadn’t been hard to tell what she had been feeling since the Paladins’ rescue. They had each been so lost in themselves that they had been unable to help her, but now they are together, reunited in the truest sense, and now they can heal Allura too. She did everything she could, and none of this was her fault. She does not have the link that they all do, they can’t just show her that it’s true, but somehow they will convince her. She suffered just as they had, but it is over now. They are reunited.

_We are real._

_We believe in you._

_We are here._

_We are alive._

_We love you._

They are found. 

__

.

.

.

_Looks like our writing on the wall_

_Is lorem ipsum after all_

_A higher tide will wash it all_

_Wash it all away_

_The lighthouse keeper's last relay_

_Hand shadows and a final wave_

_Now's the time to rouse yourself_

_Spend the strength you've saved_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> final lyrics are still dessa's sound the bells. (that song was essentially all of my feelings about the end of s1 so it ended up being heavy inspiration for this fic)
> 
>  
> 
> posted while wearing my half-finished pidge sweater during a sewing break caused mainly by frustration with this goddamn collar.


End file.
